Godless

by von

ANN COULTER, plugging her new book, has something she wants you to know (video):

LAUER: Do you believe everything in the book or do you put some things in there just to cater to your base?

ANN: No, of course I believe everything.

LAUER: On the 9-11 widows, an in particular a group that had been critical of the administration: “These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing  Bush was part of the closure process.”

And this part is the part I really need to talk to you about: “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much.” Because they dare to speak out?

COULTER: To speak out using the fact they are widows. This is the left’s doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9-11 commission, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we are allowed to respond to. No. No. No. We have to respond to someone who had a family member die. Because then if we respond, oh you are questioning their authenticity.

LAUER: So grieve but grieve quietly?

COULTER: No, the story is an attack on the nation. That requires a foreign policy response.

LAUER: By the way, they also criticized the Clinton administration.

COULTER: Not the ones I am talking about. No, no, no.

LAUER: Yeah they have.

COULTER: Oh no, no, no, no, no. They were cutting commercials for Kerry. They were using their grief to make a political point while preventing anyone from responding.

LAUER: So if you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?

COULTER: No, but don’t use the fact that you lost a husband as the basis for being able to talk about, while preventing people from responding. Let Matt Lauer make the point. Let Bill Clinton make the point. Don’t put up someone I am not allowed to respond to without questioning the authenticity of their grief.

LAUER: Well apparently you are allowed to respond to them.

COULTER: Yeah, I did....That is the point of liberal infallibility. Of putting up Cindy Sheehan, of putting out these widows, of putting out Joe Wilson. No, no, no. You can’t respond. It’s their doctrine of infallibility. Have someone else make the argument then.

LAUER: What I’m saying is I don’t think they have ever told you, you can’t respond.

COULTER: Look, you are getting testy with me.

LAUER: No. I think it’s a dramatic statement. “These broads are millionaires stalked by stalked by grief-parazzies”? “I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s deaths so much”?

COULTER: Yes, they are all over the news.

LAUER: The book is called “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Ann Coulter, always fun to have you here.

As Pogo is to politics, Ann Coulter is to morality:  She has met the enemy and it is her.  Fitting, then, for her to have named her latest masterwork "Godless."  "I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s deaths so much"?  I would like to think that this is the kind of thing that permanently ends one's career, but I fear that it's wishful thinking.

It's not just that she's tactless, insulting, and amoral ("ask me about my book, Matt") -- though of course she's all those things.  Nor is she worth the ten minutes of thought it took to compose this post.  So let's use this sorry excuse for a pundit as a teaching exercise:  If you want to rob an valid point of any power, poignancy, or relevance, treat it just like Ann Coulter does.  Because there's a valid point to be made, somewhere in her asinine blathering, about how people bestow authority on victims.  And how it's frequently a mistake to do so. 

But, thanks to brilliant Ann, no one really cares about that argument. The substance has been effectively concealed.  The truly important thing is: "I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s deaths so much."  Because that sells books.

Thanks, Ann.  You're a real princess. 

Now, let's all agree never to listen or talk to Ann again.  Confirm among ourselves, yet again, that Ann's an irrelevance:  pointless and useless, even in the service of her own cause.  A liability of the first order.  Because that really would be hell for Ann, wouldn't it? 

UPDATE:  Phil writes in comments:

If I didn't know you better (in an online way, of course), I'd swear you were doing stealth damage-control for the Republicans: "Oh, that Ann Coulter, of course we disavow her! She's crazy!" Until the next time she gets invited to give the keynote speech at some other big Republican Party shindig. You may not want her, and I may not want her, but the GOP sure does.

Let's remove any claim that I'm being "stealth[y]."  Of course I find Coulter's public persona to be generally pointless, and her tactics to range from the stupid to the merely evil.  It should be no surprise, then, that I want to distance my political agenda from her public persona -- and, since my political agenda involves electing Republican moderates, that means (more or less) distancing the Republican party from this walking public disaster. 

If folks on the far right want to continue to embrace her, well, there ain't much that I can do about that.  But I can point out that the Republican party (and those who, like me, lean in that direction) includes a much broader swath of the electorate than the likes of Coulter.  I can also point out the wide gulf between her and responsible Republicans -- and that many of us find Coulter to be frankly disgusting in her current incarnation.  Just as (I hope) many on the left find Michael Moore to be an idiot -- and to rightfully distance themselves from Moore stupidity and moral incoherence.  (I had to shut off Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" when it became clear that I was going break my TV with one or more hurled objects.  What kind of moron equates a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia with a killer gunning down classmates in cold blood in Colorado?  Answer:  Michael Moore.)

Comments

[dutchmarbel]

Gary, I lean more towards this interpretation, especially in a phrase as "pacifistic strain":

Over the years, pacifism has acquired different meanings. As a consequence, it is practiced in a variety of ways. For example, pacifists may make an individual vow of nonviolence. They may also organize and actively pursue nonviolence and peace between nations. They may even assert that some form of support for selective violence is sometimes necessary to achieve worldwide peace.

Sebastian: as Anarch stated, he supported general Clark for president. To be honest, I hesitated over Afghanistan, especially since I felt there were more negotiating openings still available. The Taliban however, though slightly moving in a better direction, were really bad for the country and the people in it. I also believed Bush when he said that this time the US would stay and help rebuild the country - and felt that it was important for the US as worldpower that they could show that they were not bluffing.

Had I known at that time what I know now, that Bush's promisses should be parsed by an American Lawyer for double meanings and even than cannot be relied upon - or that the US would bring in the Northern Allience, which consisted mainly of the former warlords who commited so many crimes against the population that the people welcomed the Taliban, I would never have supported Afghanistan. Maybe Moore was smarter and/or better informed than me.

KenB: everybody who supported the Iraq invastion while the inspectors were still in does not believe in war as a last resort.

[William Loughborough]

I didn't read all the comments but the point is missed entirely that the fascination with Ann Coulter has nothing to do with her rant but with the long-held folk wisdom that Fascist women give great head.

It's just a weird psychosexual perversion.

Love.